Sunday, May 12, 2013

Mass Shooting #2

Source Material: http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/12/us/louisiana-shooting/index.html

Abdul Aziz believes
 he was standing right next to a shooter
Sunday when gunmen opened fire
 at a Mother's Day parade in New Orleans, injuring 19 people.

"Everyone around me,
 except me,
 was shot,"

 he said. "I was pretty fortunate to get away."

Aziz, 33,
photojournalist, was at the second-line parade
when gunfire broke
out at the corner of Frenchman Street and North Villere Street.

Second-line parades,
which involve dancing and brass bands,
are a New Orleans tradition.
They happen most every Sunday,
except during the hottest months in summer,
 according to Aziz.

"We turned
off of a main thoroughfare to a smaller residential street, and that's
 when the shots rang out.

 I was standing,
 I believe,
right next to the shooter.
I saw muzzle flash
, but unfortunately I didn't get a chance to see
who the shooter was," he said.

People panicked and ran.
Aziz,
who has worked in the Middle East,
 started taking pictures.

He sent those images to CNN iReport.

"It's a little jarring
when you see these types of things on the home front,"

he said."I'm sad.
 I love this city.

We're plagued by crime,
 and it's just not getting better
 no matter what
 we do."

According to police,
 19 people were injured in the shooting,
 including two children.
Ten men
 and seven women were
 among the victims.

The children suffered
graze wounds. Other injuries
 ranged from minor
to severe.

Shots were fired from different guns,
and officers saw three suspects
running from the scene, police said.

One of the suspects was described
 as an African-American male,
 approximately 18 to 22 years old,
wearing a white T-shirt
and blue jean shorts.

No one is in custody.

"This is an extremely
unusual occurrence,
and we're confident that we will make swift
 arrests," said Remi Braden, a police spokeswoman.

Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas told CNN affiliate WVUE
that it appears "two or three people
just, for a reason unknown to us, started shooting
at,
 towards
, or in
 the crowd."

He asked anyone with information to call authorities.
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu
 echoed that request, challenging the community
 to get involved.

"It's important for us, as I have said, to change
 the culture of death
on the streets of New Orleans
 to a culture of life,

and it's going to take an all-hands-on-deck approach,"
 he said.

"These kinds of incidents are
 not going to go unanswered.
We're going to be very,
 very aggressive.

 There were hundreds of people
 out there today, so somebody
knows who did
this."